Crimes of the Anti-Paragon DLC
Full name: Dragon Age TTRPG Party and the Crimes of the Anti-Paragon - but hopefully its better than "Crimes of Grindelwald" Synopsis Written by Eve Set in 9:36 Hearing (December) Sessions Session 1: Hide yo kids, Hide yo mages Mercè, a thief, gets recruited by a carta dwarf named Siggy to protect a caravan of trade goods. However along the way the caravan gets ambushed by a pack of dwarves, hellbent on abducting the escort party. After a fight, the only ones left standing are Mercè and Siggy who go off in search of the abducted caravan boss. Meanwhile in Val Royeux, Tyra is invited to a mission to find a missing Senior Enchanter, Guy, by Sanga. She enthusiastically agrees. Mr Melon is searching for his long lost parents in the Alienage of Antiva City. There he meets up with Thorfinn (or just Finn for short) an elven child who's also lost his dad. The two of them team up and assault a warehouse by the docks. There they meet up with Emily who assists. After burning down half of Antiva, they find some info to go on and sets off in search of Thorfinns dad. Along the way they meet up with Mercè and Siggy and it becomes clear that both parties are after the same goal. Session 2: Much to the dismay of Mercè We flashback to Anahada being recruited by an overworked Leliana's agent who's got too many jobs and asked Anahada to fill in for her for 5 gold. He joins Tyra and Sanga on their way following the phylactery At the deep roads entrance the two groups finally meet. Tyra and Sanga immediately tries to arrest Mafiosa. They settle on him promising that he won't run away in return asks to be able to find out where his parents are before going to the circle. Sanga agrees to organise a templar escort for after and decides to make some use of a mage for now. Tyra then started pestering Mercè who started backing away. As Tyra kept on following Mercè she accidentally discovered a collapsed part of the wall which led into a room. The party decided to use it and attempted to squeeze through. All except Anahada who got stuck but with some help from Tyra he fit through the tight hole. There they met a dwarf who was spying on the carta who explained where the prisoners are kept and that there are secret passages about. The spy then bolted away as soon as the party agreed to spare him. He did not mention how to get to the cells much to the dismay of Mercè. The party made their way through stealthly passing guards who were "preoccupied" in the barracks, and passed out drunk guards. At one point they had to sneak through an area with alot of guards. Very aware of the lack of their stealth skills Tyra and Anahada hatched a plan to use Tyra as a battering ram to break down a wall. Many of Tyra's brain cells were lost but the wall crumbled down before the Qunari and the Chasind Templar recruit. Later Tyra suggested Anahada throw Siggie like a catapult. Mercè was not impressed but Siggie was happy to oblige. As the fight broke out Mercè was left sulking in the corner. After the fight was over Tyra found a map showing where all the secret passeges are and the location of their bosses quaters. A Dwarf by name of Yoshikage Kira... Session 3: My name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 48 years old. My house is in the northeast section of The Free Marches, where all the Deep Roads are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Carta, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone. The session starts where the last one left off, the party has come to a crossroads in the kidnapper hideout. A set of stairs lead to the Boss' office and a secret door leads to the deep roads. Tyra leads the way up the stairs and the gang face off against the Boss with a penchant for explosions and oversharing, Yoshikage Kira. Siggie detonates the enemy's grenades, the ensuing explosion hits the rest of the party, especially Tyra and Finn who go flying. After defeating and interrogating Kira, the party sends the wounded Finn away with Anahada to escort him. With the information gathered from Kira the rest of the party sets off down into the deep roads in pursuit of the kidnapping victims. In the deep roads the party gets sidetracked into a part of the roads where Siggie had heard there was treasure to be found. The party finds a plaque recounting the tale of a group of the legion of the dead dwarves who made their own kingdom separate from Orzammar. The party explores the caverns and discovers great halls filled with ghosts and spiders. After burning the spiders and dancing with a ghost, the party meets the King of the ghosts. He explains that they can't move on to the stone unless the hall that they're in becomes symmetrical. After some flirting, the king relents that he will accept it if the hall is instead destroyed completely. Tyra and Sanga set off to destroy the pillars holding up the roof and accidentally make the room more symmetrical by collapsing the sides of the roof. Sated, the ghosts dissapear and the party go to loot the tomb of the King. Mercè gets all the shiny shit, Melon gets a scepter/staff and Tyra leaves one of her gold behind as a sign of respect. Session 4: Darkspawn provings The party decides to cut through darkspawn territory to save time. After few hours of trecking through mostly abandoned tunnels they reached some sort of arena constructed by a hyper inteligent talking darkspawn. As the party was freaking out he explained how this arena was his attempt to copy the dwarven provings he also ordered the gate through which they entered to be closed so that they can't escape. He then tried asking about each person's abilities to select darkspawn to match everyone's strength. Maestro was matched with Mudgral the Antisocial who the other darkspawn seemed to hate even more than darkspawn usually hate things to the point where the audence cheered when Sanga cut his head off. Siggie got Sklei the Unmoving who proved extremly incompitent due to his shield being too large for him. Sanga and Tyra got matched with an agressive one and protective one. When one of them died the other went into a rage focused entirely on Tyra. Mercè matched with Mikki Tm The Quick who was killed by Mudgral's fireball because we could not afford a lawsuit by Disney. After all of them laid dead and Melon learned that some Tyra's ideas may be bad (also to not run head first into battle hopefully). The Jojo part 2 pillar men theme started blasting as the darkspawn who organised the whole thing came into the ring carrying a bigass sword ready for a final battle. Session 5: A Darkspawn, deepstalkers and the emergency provision. The party finds out that the big dick darkspawn boss was kind of a chump and they dispatched him quite easily. To smear his defeat in, Tyra took his sword as well. The party continues their spelunking ramble through the deep roads, kills some deepstalkers and finds a strange room full of flowers. In the midst of the flowers is a broken blade and a shack full of elven writing. Tyra and Melon decipher some of the tablets and discover a map leading to a stronghold deep in the roads. Session 6: The discord fuckup. The party trudges through the deep roads when they stumble upon a cave full of corpses. Suddenly, the party start feeling a bit drowsy and start falling asleep, one after another. Sanga wakes up in her (totally normal) house, where her (totally normal) family sits around like a (totally normal) family does. Yeah no it's the fade. So Sanga kills the demons and ventures off in search of the others. Tyra also appears in a (totally normal) demon house with Zoe and Arasghilana sitting and chatting on a sofa. Yeah no they're also demons so Tyra kills them as well. Sanga enters Tyras dream but Tyra is very very susp of her mentor and very much believes that she is also a demon. Session 6.5 A Slothful Encounter Melon awakes in a library along with his parents, ex-girlfriend and Finn. His parents start making out and Finn is being rude. I dunno what's going on, the fade is weird ok? Long story short, fire starts in the library, Tyra and Sanga enters the library, Tyra leaves the library, Sanga kills demons. Mercè awakes on a road with a bunch of carriages filled with so, so much cash, because of course she does. Tyra runs in, kills one of the guards and gets stabbed in the eye because Mercè didn't like that very much. Mercè nigerundayo's the fuck outta there and some demons appear. Melon and Sanga help Tyra fend them off and so the party is almost complete. The party jumps to Ziggys dream which mostly consist of beards and dead dragons. The beard was an impostor and the gang heads to where the demon resides. The party find a dwarf who, the party finds out later, is a really shitty golembuilder. The gang threaten him with violence, like the heroes they are, and the demon appears. The party fucks it up and finally manage to escape the fade. But not before the dwarf gives them a bit of exposition about his brother probably being behind the kidnappings, using the victims to make golems for some kind of deity. The party slap eachother a bit and wake up right where they fell asleep. Session 7 The Fraternal Calamity The party has finally reached the stronghold of the dwarven-kidnapper-cult-guys. Unfortunately, the front door is locked. Fortunately, Tyra can literally just run through walls. Once inside the stronghold, Mercè picks up a strange, red idol and listens to it sing something between Country roads and Sweet Home Alabama or something. Melon seems the most affected by the song and starts acting like he's possessed. Siggie finds it creepy and tosses the idol into the lava. Eventually the gang is forced to subdue him before he lights a barrel of grease on fire. The party interrogates a dwarf trying to break into a storeroom to steal soap. Tyra tries to kill him but Sanga and Mercè convince her not to. In return the dwarf runs away and starts a civil war in the stronghold between the cultists. Seeing the soap, the party throw Melon into a chest full of it and shake it around. Melon starts smelling (marginally) better. To finish off, the party joins the in-fight by throwing a barrel of grease at the cultists and lighting it on fire. While Mercè sits the fight out. Session 8: The Red Golem (The Rolem) The gang fuckhn continue through the deep roads, their vitamin D deficiency worsening by the minute. For some reason the party goes along with another of Tyras plans just as they encounter a golem covered in the same weird red shit that the idol was made of. But this one doesn't sing so who cares. The golem fucking yotes Tyra into some dwarves and Sanga fhuchkn dies lmao. But Melon ressurects her so now she's officially jesus. Speaking of Melon, we meet Finns daddy who was locked up, waiting to be turned into a golem by the evil-cult-butt-dwarves. The party also find Sweeney who fucking turns on dev-mode and no-clips through Sanga and Tyra and floats through the ceiling or something. Mercè and Ziggy find the driver of their caravan back in session 1 and question him. He tells Mercé that the whole thing was a scam, fuck the carta and Ziggy is related to the big dick boss. The party leave the stronghold and stumble on a (strangely attractive) grey warden. Session 9: Meet the wardens/ Ancient elven secrets The session starts with the party, the sane people they are, meeting a funeral procession of nugs mourning the nug king. Merce. Being the sanest can even understand the somber squeaks of the nugs mourning their king. It is clear that they'e been down there for too long. They then come across a Grey Warden camp and meet the second shitiest person alive in the world (Loghain). He offers the party to stay and trade if they want so they come in and immediately crowd Oghren who was trying to relax with a couple of cold ones. Merce tries to steal his booze and drinks a bottle, so Oghren takes it as a challenge and drinks a bigger bottle. The whole thing devolves into a drinking contest which Oghren wins. Duh. Merce and Siggie pass out, Tyra has a heartwarming chat with Sanga about murder then sleeps off the booze and Sanga and Mistake remain the only sober people. Melon makes the biggest mistake of his life and slaps Merce, who then beats him up and goes back to sleep. The Wardens say they have to move to they pack up and leave the party to sleep off the booze. After they all wake up Merce still feels the slap and triest to fucking kill Melon, Tyra and Sanga try to stop her but then Mistake tries to fucking burn Merce and the Templars unsurprisingly turn on him, after some shouting they agree that Melon is to keep his distance from Merce and only cast spells at the bad guys. The dysfunctional party then decide to drop by the stronghold which was pointed out by a stone tablet from session 5. They find a ghost of one of the guardians of this place who starts off hostile but then turns curious when Tyra shows the sword they found. They attempt to communicate but none of them know elven, and the ghost never took lessons in trade tongue either. So the ghost has the bright idea to have them drink blood from one of the phylacteries. Melon feeling like he has nothing to lose downs it and is able to speak and read elven for as long as plot allows. The ghost introduces herself as the commander and asks the party the usual, "who, what etc. questions", she then asks if they could investigate a strange presence from beyond the eluvian which was bugging her, she couldn't investigate it on account of being a ghost. They were asked to hit the books in the library (figuratively speaking for the Tyras in the audience) and find the 5 correct books with passages each with emboldened words collectively spelling out "For the Glory of Elven-kind".While going through the books they found that this organisation were an order of super-soldiers tasked with fighting humans and changing the elven mythos to improve the mood of elves after an unspecified cataclysm. After some research Melon burned the books with veilfire which revealed a hidden compartment with a document saying that after creating the mythos was complete and successful, the eluvians were to close cutting off contact between different strongholds and prompting the humans to attack and hopefully destroy all evidence of any elven culture. Knowledge of this was the key to the eluvian so the party went there leaving the Commander to ponder her purpose in the world by herself. Inside the eluvian they found a bunch of parchment and a quil which wrote that its Ghilan'nain trapped in the fade and wants to get out. Tyra and Sanga were sceptical and figured it must be a demon. Melon believed Ghilan'nain 100% and Merce didn't give a shit because Ghilly promised loot so she's in. Siggie figured if it is a demon they could fight it and kill it and still get the loot. She used console commands to raise her speech to a 100 and persuaded Sanga that maybe if they killed it the demon wouldn't remain there to threaten another group of idiots to stumble through this place. Tyra greatly disapproved but went with Sanga because she was the leader. While they were arguing Merce and Melon already got Commander's body which was in some sort of stasis pod and the pile of phylacteries with the blood needed for the ritual. They went to another ritual dressed in protective suits specially designed to keep them from contaminating the ritual site because Ghilan'nain would rather be trapped in the fade than return to a world which doesn't follow standard health and safety protocols. They then dropped the body and phylacteries in a circle of lunar tears, and Melon attempted to cast the summoning spell which almost didn't work but at the last try the Commanders body and the area of the circle was ripped to shreds and reassembled into Ghilan'nain because possession is so -2000 ancient. She then summoned a bunch of halla and also ripped them apart and reassembled their hide into 2 pieces of enchanted armour and some extra hide and horns to be sold. She then made Sanga and Tyra who were ready for a fight immobile and ran off. Back in the crossroads the party met with a pissed off dragon which ended up to be pissed off Flemeth telling them off for releasing an ancient evil. Back in the real world Tyra told Sanga she doesn't respect her anymore. :( Finally the party reach the place where the anvil of the void is held. In order to reach it they first had to clear the maze. Led by Merce they cleared it surprisingly quickly, Melon tried to kill himself on the spikes but the armour he got from Ghilan'nain took in the damage stopped his suicide attempt. Session 10: It just works Alright alright alright, yall listening? Here we go. The party's finally past the maze, on the other side is a door. But not just any door, it's a magic door. A magic dwarven door that slides dissapears when you open it. Pretty neat huh? The party open the door and lo and behold, more dwarves. Three of them in fact. We've got eyepatch dwarf, we've got lady dwarf and fat dwarf. Also golem :) The twist is that eyepatch dwarf is actually called the beast and is actually Ziggys uncle, but after killing him there's another twist. He's actually called fucking Steven. With the dwarves and the golem dealt with, the party focus their effort on their real goal. Opening every door in the world. Behind one of the doors is some mage that Tyra and Sanga was looking for, but who cares we've got more doors to open. Behind door number two is a bunch of oil and water (Foreshadowing to the paragraph below). Also it turns out that Tyra picked up a cool glowing stone in the fight but Mercè steals it and crushes it in the maze (More foreshadowing) like a jerk. Anyway they argue a bit about destroying the anvil of the void or not, but they eventually agree and absolutely everyone is happy with the result. Also more doors. This door actually leads to another door! What a treat for us door enthusiasts. The party feels their primal urge to open this door as well but, shock and horror, this door cannot be opened. What manner of devilry made such a thing as an unopenable door?! A mystery for another day. Now the party is a very delicate intelligent group of people so what could they do when there's a slight obstacle in their way? Well remember that oil we mentioned back there :) Anyway the door goes boom and a bunch of dwarves start spilling out. The Dwarf archers, or dwarchers as they like to be called, assault the party and Sanga and Tyra play a game of toss the dwarf into the spikes and lasers. It's all fun until Todd "the anti-paragon" himself shows up with a horde of faulty golems and start doing a sales-pitch in the middle of the fight, truly a visionary. After Tyra breaks the game and murders the golems with "Aura of pain" combined with "Team mom", Todd nigerundayos and Mercè「notorious chases」after him. Now Melon gets a wonderful idea. An awful idea. Melon had a wonderful, awful idea. So while the Templars are busy fighting, Melon runs away. The other Mage sees him and runs after him, Tyra and Sanga hear the mage and runs after them as well. Mercè yeetarinos Todd into the lava with a sick combo attack and Melon gets his legs crushed in the Maze. Mercè gets rewarded even more money, Melon gets his ass sent to the mage prison, Tyra reports what Sanga did in the deep roads and gets her sent away to study red lyrium. Alls well that ends well.